Broken Vow
by summerstwilight
Summary: A quiet moment between Jack and Elizabeth. Written before DMC, now AU. Followed by Broken Faith, companion to Candle on the Water and Windows and Doors two earlier fics


Disclaimer: Disney owns them all, I just like to play with them.  
Title: Broken Vow  
Rating: PG  
Pairing: Jack/Elizabeth, a splash of Elizabeth/Will  
Summary: A quiet moment between Jack and Elizabeth  
Warning: Character death (in the past)

Broken Vow

"Do you remember that night, on the island?" Jack asked quietly.

"It's rather a blur." Elizabeth admitted as she tended to the tea kettle. "I find myself thinking of that whole adventure a lot of late."  
"Why?" Jack asked, curious if his thoughts matched hers.

"It reminds me of Will, stupid boy." She sniffled, a tear escaping down her cheek.

"How long's it been, love?"  
"Near two years." She turned to face him. "It's funny, Jack, I never thought it would be him. He was a wonderful swordsman, and you taught him to sail, to really fight." She sighed, looking out the window. "He loved the sea. He said he felt closer to his father. Sometimes I think he loved her more then he loved me."  
"The sea is a cruel mistress. When she marks a man, she doesn't let him go easily."

"Is that how it is for you, Jack?"  
"That's how it was, aye. I needed no more then my Peal and a good rum."  
"That was Will. His ship and his cause, his damn good intentions." She stopped, head down, hands shaking in anger at her dead husband and his mistress. Jack leaned across the table, taking both of her hands in his.

"Elizabeth." She looked up. "He was a good man. He did what he thought he had to do."  
"And left me alone. Left me alone with not even James to comfort me."  
"Just poor old Jack Sparrow." He released her hands gently, slipping down in his seat.

"Oh Jack, I didn't mean that at all, you know that. It's just you're a pirate, you couldn't take care of me like Will or James."  
"You never gave me the chance." He mumbled.

"What?"  
"Nothing. You never answered my question."  
"I remember a little bit, now and then. It was just one night." Elizabeth got up, brushing her hands on her apron. She gathered the last of the tea things and set them out.

"Do you remember what we talked about?  
"Very little. I remember not being drunk enough for your talk."  
"Talk?"  
"Yes. I wasn't some Tortugan girl, you know. I'm still not. We both know I was just young and had a fiancé, of sorts, and that's why you talked as you did. Another conquest for Captain Jack Sparrow." Despite the words she uttered, they were free of malice. She honestly thought that's all she had been.

"Oh." Suddenly Jack found his tea very interesting. He stirred it and stirred it, even when the sugar was long gone.

"I never did tell Will. You know-"she smiled slightly-"Some nights, I almost wish I had been drunk enough for that talk. I always thought I should like to meet a pirate when I was a little girl. But the pirate I wanted to meet was nothing like Barbossa or any of them, not even like your crew. I think the pirates of my dreams were always a little like you." She shook her head slightly. "I do ramble on so. Why don't you ever stop me?"  
"I don't mind." Jack said.

"Jack, are you all right? You're usually full of news or stories." Elizabeth looked at him, concern in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm just thinking about…" he waved his hand carelessly, searching for a word to convey his maze of thoughts. "The Pearl, Barbossa, Will," he paused "You."

"What about me?" she asked.

"Everything. Rescuing you. Learning about you. Wondering why you burned the bloody rum." A ghost of a smile appeared on his face. "Your wedding, I never did ask about it. Will dying on some bloody ship a hundred miles away and you not knowing. Everything."  
"Jack-"

He cut her off, his lips on hers, softly searching. She broke away, eyes downcast.

"Jack, it isn't proper."  
"To hell with propriety!" He exclaimed, showing real emotion for the first time all day. He grasped her arms, shaking her. "Have you no bloody idea what you mean to me? Why I come here? It isn't for your tea, it's for your company." His eyes flashed, stormy as the sea. He released his grip on her, grabbed his hat, and walked out the door.

Many a man has walked down that road towards the docks, his life and livelihood no certain thing. Many a woman has stood at the door, smiling for no one's benefit but his. More often then not, the man returns. For each who does, though, there is another, somewhere, who is lost.

Elizabeth never truly felt that loss until that moment. As she walked Jack walk down to his ship, that lilting walk that made him look always slightly intoxicated and never comfortable on land, she realized what exactly he had done for her. It was Jack who had returned to Port Royal, though there be a price on his head, to tell her of Will's death, days before a Navy cruiser returned with the same news. It was his shoulder she had cried on, his stories that made her laugh again. She had lived because Jack had forced her to. Now, she found she had not the strength she credited herself with. Elizabeth turned around slowly and walked back into the kitchen. She should start cleaning up the dishes, she was sure, but that could wait. She sank down in a chair across the table from where he had sat. The room had someone changed. It hadn't any of the liveliness that accompanied Jack even in his darkest moods. She stared at her right palm. It was the only scar she had, that long slender mark where the knife had gone. She knew that Jack and Will had matching scars. Staring at it made her remember that day, long ago, in the caves. Barbossa had a gun pointed at her heart. She hadn't any doubt he would pull the trigger. He was a cold blooded killer of many, surely a little girl in a soldier's uniform was little to him. Before he could calk his pistol, Jack had fired at him. Barbossa's words had rung in her ears then, and she could still hear him now :"Ten years you carry that pistol Jack and you waste your last shot." Elizabeth had wondered why Jack fired when he did. It wasn't obvious that the curse had been broken. Would he have fired if she hadn't had a gun aimed toward her? At the time, she thought he would have. Now, she began to have her doubts. What if…

"That's impossible." She berated herself silently. "Jack Sparrow cares no more for you then for a stray bird."

"But might he?" She wondered. She would never know the answer, she feared. She had broken an unspoken vow, one she was not conscious of. And Jack wouldn't be coming back.

Elizabeth put her head down on the table and began to cry.

For those who enjoyed this, I wrote a longer sort of sequel piece, Broken Faith, which is here fanfiction. net/ s/2020418/1/ (sorry, I can't put a link in for some reason.)


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